Tim Lincecum tossed aside his recent struggles and pitched his first career no-hitter and the second in the majors in 11 days, a gem saved by a spectacular diving catch by right fielder Hunter Pence in the San Francisco Giants' 9-0 win over last-place San Diego on Saturday night.

Lincecum has won two Cy Young Awards and two World Series rings. Now he has something really remarkable a no-hitter in which he threw a whopping career-high 148 pitches.

"Right now I think I'm just kind of coming down and don't know where to be emotionally," a calm Lincecum said.

The slightly built right-hander was in control from his first pitch until his last, which settled into left fielder Gregor Blanco's glove and set off a wild celebration in front of a pro-Giants crowd at Petco Park.

Catcher Buster Posey wrapped Lincecum (5-9) in a bear hug and lifted him off the ground. Lincecum was then mobbed by his teammates behind the mound and doused with water.

Blanco, who caught Yonder Alonso's fly ball to end the game, found Lincecum in the mob and handed him the ball.

Lincecum, who witnessed Jonathan Sanchez's no-hitter against San Diego in 2009 and Matt Cain's perfect game last year, was given a champagne shower by his teammates in the clubhouse.

"It's pretty surreal for me just to be part of that," Lincecum said. "Obviously I got to see a couple with Jonathan's and Cain's perfect game, but to be in the middle of it is a little different. I think I'm still kind of pinching myself right now."

Lincecum struck out 13. He walked four and hit a batter.

Still, he needed some help to preserve his no-no. Pence caught Alexi Amarista's sinking liner with a full dive to end the eighth. Lincecum pumped his fist as Pence excitedly jumped up and with the ball in his glove. Amarista put his hands to his helmet and pulled it off in disgust.

"That was really special. To be honest with you, I thought that was a hit off the bat by Amarista," Lincecum said. "But Hunter comes flying out of nowhere and makes the Superman catch. That was awesome."

Pence said he "just laid out and reached as far as I could and happened to just get there. I would say the whole game was one of the greatest feelings and greatest things to be a part of."

Said Amarista: "He got to the ball."

Lincecum's 148 pitches were the second most thrown in a no-hitter since at least 1988, according to STATS.

Edwin Jackson needed 149 pitches for his no-no for Arizona in 2010.

Lincecum had 103 going into the seventh and might've saved his shot at history with an 11-pitch inning.

"You don't see a pitcher up over 140 pitches in a no-hitter often," Posey said. "You get fatigued."

Posey noted that Lincecum threw more than 200 pitches all night, including 40 in the bullpen warming up pregame and then eight pitches before each inning.

"It takes a toll on your body, so for him to be able to continue to execute pitches is remarkable," the catcher said.

Manager Bruce Bochy said he had pitching coach Dave Righetti who threw a no-hitter for the New York Yankees on July 4, 1983 check on Lincecum the last few innings.

"I'm superstitious at that point," Bochy said. "I'm not going to say anything. There was no way he was coming out. I was just praying he didn't hit the 150 mark.

"He was just right on all night with all his pitches," Bochy said.

Lincecum was in a season-long funk. He was the loser when Cincinnati's Homer Bailey no-hit the Giants on July 2.

Pablo Sandoval did his part, too, when he made a nice backhanded play on pinch-hitter Jesus Guzman's grounder deep behind third base and threw him out for the third out of the seventh.

Lincecum had been struggling coming in, losing his previous four decisions and hadn't won since June 4 against Toronto. He hadn't won on the road since April 3 at the Los Angeles Dodgers. Then again, he'd gotten only 12 runs of support in his last 10 starts.

The crowd gave Lincecum a standing ovation as he headed to the mound for the ninth.

Lincecum struck out Chase Headley and then retired Carlos Quentin and Alonso on fly balls to left.

Lincecum tossed the 15th no-hitter in franchise history and seventh since the Giants moved to San Francisco after the 1957 season. Matt Cain was perfect last June.

The Padres remain the only team without a no-hitter.

Lincecum lost 15 games last year and ended the season as a reliever and a reliable one at that. He cut his hair short in the offseason, a new look as he started anew. He worked out with a personal trainer during the winter to add about 10 pounds of strength, and tweaked his mechanics.

Padres manager Bud Black said Lincecum was mixing his fastball, splitter, curve and cutter.

"He's evolved," Black said. "He knows how to pitch. He keeps his poise. He has us off-balance all night."

The Padres lost for the 18th time in 21 games and dropped a season-high 13 games under .500.

"We haven't been swinging the bats like we're capable," Black said. "We're not pitching. There's a lot of things we're not doing well. The last 2 weeks have been unacceptable. We just haven't gotten it done."

While Lincecum dominated the Padres, the Giants jumped all over San Diego's Edinson Volquez (6-8).

Posey and Sandoval had three hits apiece. Pence hit a three-run double and finished with four RBIs against Volquez, and then homered off Joe Thatcher leading off the eighth.

Brandon Belt hit a two-run home run an estimated 414 feet into the sandy play area beyond the fence in right-center in the fourth inning.

Volquez allowed eight runs and nine hits in five innings, struck out six and walked one. He threw 107 pitches.

NOTES: The four-game series concludes Sunday with a matchup of lefties. Barry Zito, who went to high school in San Diego, is scheduled to start for San Francisco and Eric Stults is scheduled to start for the Padres.

But the 45-year-old mother of three is using her influence on new projects, working on a new album due out in October and co-producing the show of a fellow French Canadian songstress setting up shop across the street at Bally's.

"I'm not looking to make friends in the business because I want to do my job, I want to have a good time and go home to my family," Dion said in a recent interview with The Associated Press, sitting on stage next to a protege with whom she casually chatted in French. "But Veronic it's a different scenario. I'm not quite sure why. I want her to be my friend. I love her. I respect her very, very much."

Veronic DiCaire a winsome blonde from Ontario with boundless energy and just a wisp of an accent previously opened for Dion during a 2008 tour stop in Montreal. In late June, she launched a two-month run of "Veronic Voices," in which she impersonates 50 female artists ranging from Whitney Houston to Carrie Underwood and Lady Gaga.

In a city where it's hard to stroll the sidewalk without running into a Michael Jackson or Elvis impressionist, DiCaire's struggle will be rising above the stigmatized title of impersonator something Dion said DiCaire can do because she "becomes" her characters.

"You've seen impersonators, you've seen men doing women, and women doing men," Dion said. "Sometimes it's funny, and sometimes it's so exaggerated. We've seen it all. With Veronic it's very, very different."

DiCaire has a devoted French-speaking following after living in France, but her Vegas show is her breakout into the Anglophone world. Between summoning the big voice of Amy Winehouse, mimicking the snappy stage gestures of her patroness Dion, and overdoing a Taylor Swift twang, she takes on a wide-eyed, country-girl-meets-big-city persona, at one point offering the self-deprecating quip "pardon my French" when she stumbled over her words.

If the show doesn't take off, it won't be for lack of a mentor. Dion wrote the textbook on creating a Vegas brand, filling up her 4,000-seat auditorium since she initially debuted there in 2003 and disproving doubters who wrote Sin City off as a retirement community for fading stars.

"Critics said, 'Oh, my God, the Titanic's going to sink again, she's going to finish her career here,'" Dion recalled. "We took a chance. It worked really well for us.

"I don't have to be here. The reason why I'm here is because I'm really enjoying being here," she added.

The Vegas appeal, Dion said, is skipping the exhausting tour schedule and going home every night to her producer husband and three boys: 12-year-old Rene Charles and twin 2-year-olds Eddy and Nelson.

The youngest ones are named after heroes Eddy for French lyricist Eddy Marnay, whom Dion describes as her dad in show business, and Nelson for Nelson Mandela the ailing, 94-year-old former president of South Africa.

"We met with Mr. Mandela. It was a very amazing, privileged moment," she said of the man credited with helping end apartheid. "We both thought it's a hero name ... Nelson Mandela was representing something so positive and so grand."

Apart from duties as mom and mentor, Dion plans to release her first English album in six years this fall. Challenged to keep things fresh after three decades of recording, she said, it includes some unexpected collaborations, including one with R&B artist Ne-Yo.

"The producers and the songwriters kind of proposed, again, amazing songs to me, and I got excited again," she said. "The whole project was extraordinary."

The storm did not make landfall on the island of Hispaniola shared by the two nations. But Chantal brought heavy rain to areas prone to flooding and landslides in places where many people live in flimsy homes of plywood and corrugated steel.

In both countries, people fortified houses with tarps and wood and gathered supplies, largely ignoring warnings to leave their neighborhoods.

"We're going to wait until it's over. We're already used to this," said 36-year-old Sergio Guzman, who along the banks of a river near Santo Domingo.

A Dominican firefighter was killed in the community of Maimon, about 50 miles (85 kilometers) north of the capital, Santo Domingo, when he was swept away by floodwaters as he tried to clear a storm drain, said Luis Luna, director of the country's civil defense agency. The death of 26-year-old Juan Ramon Rodriguez was believed to be the first caused by Chantal, which began moving through the Caribbean on Tuesday.

Authorities were evacuating thousands of people from communities considered at high risk for flooding as rivers near the capital and along the southern coast reached dangerously high levels as heavy rains from the storm continued to fall.

"We're not in the clear yet," said Juan Manuel Mendez, the director of the Emergency Operations Center.

As showers began falling along Haiti's southern coast Wednesday afternoon, officials took to the radio airwaves to urge people to move away from ravines, secure important records and stock up on food and water.

"There's not much I can do," Stevenson Etienne, a 40-year-old welder, said from his garage in downtown Port-au-Prince. "Still, I will try to protect myself and my children."

Chantal was about 145 miles (235 kilometers) south of the Haitian capital of Port-au-Prince Wednesday afternoon, moving west at 29 mph (46 kph), with maximum sustained winds of 45 mph (75 kph), according to the U.S. National Hurricane Center in Miami. It was on track to head north across Cuba and toward the Bahamas and Florida, but forecasters said the storm would likely weaken to a tropical depression by Thursday.

A tropical storm warning was in effect Wednesday for Haiti, Turks and Caicos and the southeastern Bahamas. A tropical storm watch was in effect for Jamaica and the central Bahamas.

Even a weaker Chantal could create problems for the rural southern peninsula of Haiti and southwestern Dominican Republic.

Storms often trigger flooding and landslides on Hispaniola, and severe deforestation and makeshift housing make Haiti especially vulnerable.

Port-au-Prince is a hilly city on the ocean that's surrounded by vast concrete shanties that collapse in mudslides, sometimes killing people. Also, about 279,000 Haitians still live in ramshackle settlements established after a devastating 2010 earthquake.

Last year, a hurricane and a tropical storm separately caused widespread flooding after merely brushing Haiti.

Marie Alta Jean-Baptiste, general director for Haiti's Civil Protection Department, said the government had prepared 400 emergency shelters nationwide. She urged people to tie up livestock, monitor the radio for updates and avoid crossing rivers.

American Airlines canceled flights to Haiti and elsewhere in the Caribbean.

Chantal raced through the eastern Caribbean early Tuesday, with officials in Dominica reporting that heavy winds ripped the roofs off several homes. No injuries were reported there or anywhere else in the region.

Overnight, the storm passed south of Puerto Rico, leaving about 7,000 people without power and more than 2,500 people without water. Gov. Alejandro Garcia Padilla ordered public employees in the U.S. territory to return to work on Wednesday.

The U.S. Coast Guard said all Puerto Rican ports had reopened except those on the southern and western coasts.

___

Associated Press writers Daniel and Evens Sanon reported from Port-au-Prince, Haiti, and Lopez from Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. Danica Coto in San Juan, Puerto Rico contributed to this report.

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Japanese right-hander Kuroda (8-6) allowed six hits and struck out five to help the Yankees win their third straight game and improve to 51-42 for the season.

Boone Logan recorded three clutch seventh-inning strikeouts to preserve the lead and Mariano Rivera finished off the eight-hitter for his 30th save on a soggy, windy evening at Yankee Stadium.

Gardner and Cano accounted for New York's offense with a pair of fifth-inning RBI singles after the home team had failed to score against Twins' starter Scott Diamond before rain interrupted proceedings for 73 minutes.

Joe Mauer, Brian Dozier and Trevor Plouffe each had two hits for struggling Minnesota, who slipped to their sixth successive defeat, and their 12th in 13 games.

In Atlanta, the Braves suffered a costly evening game at Turner Field where they were beaten 4-2 by the Cincinnati Reds and also lost two more outfielders to injury - the Upton brothers, B.J. and Justin.

Cincinnati starter Bronson Arroyo (8-7) held a depleted Atlanta to just three hits in seven strong innings while Brandon Phillips hit a two-run single in the first as the visitors evened the four-game series at one game each.

Sam LeCure pitched a perfect eighth and Aroldis Chapman yielded a run in the ninth before earning his 21st save as the Reds improved to 52-41. The National League East leading Braves slipped to 53-40.

Atlanta, without right fielder Jason Heyward who strained his right hamstring the previous day, lost center fielder B.J. Upton (right adductor muscle strain) in the first inning and right fielder Justin Upton (left calf strain) in the seventh.

In Detroit, Doug Fister (7-5) threw six strong innings after his batters had supported him with seven early runs to propel the hosting Tigers to a 7-2 victory over the Texas Rangers in front of a capacity crowd of 41,686 at Comerica Park.

Austin Jackson and Torii Hunter hit back-to-back doubles to start the game, and Jhonny Peralta and Victor Martinez drove in two runs apiece as Rangers starter Justin Grimm (7-7) was removed due to a sore right forearm with one out in the fourth.

Martinez extended his hitting streak to 14 games, batting .446 during that stretch with 10 runs scored and nine RBIs, for the Tigers (51-41) to remain 2-1/2 games ahead of the second-placed Cleveland Indians in the American League Central.

In Miami, Washington starter Stephen Strasburg (5-7) made an early exit in one of the worst games of his career as the Nationals were hammered 8-3 by the Marlins.

Strasburg walked three of the first four batters he faced and was removed after allowing seven runs over two innings at Marlin Park, where Marcell Ozuna drove in three runs and Giancarlo Stanton homered for Miami.

(Reporting by Mark Lamport-Stokes in Los Angeles; Editing by Peter Rutherford)

The Tour has been nervy so far, with several bad crashes. There was another right at the end of the 12th stage, and Froome was lucky enough to be riding just ahead of it.

With the mountains looming, the British rider will be looking to stay out of trouble on the 173-kilometre (107.5-mile) trek from Tours, which is surrounded by the Loire river, to Saint-Amand-Montrond, a small town in the centre of France.

Barring mishap, Froome's lead should remain unchanged.

He is 3 minutes, 25 seconds ahead of second-placed Alejandro Valverde; 3:37 clear of Bauke Mollema, and 3:54 ahead of two-time former champion Alberto Contador.

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) -- The World Food Prize Foundation on Wednesday took the bold step of awarding this year's prize to three pioneers of plant biotechnology whose work brought the world genetically modified crops.

The private nonprofit foundation, which is in part funded by biotechnology companies, refused to shy away from the controversy surrounding genetically modified crops that organic food advocates say are harmful to people and the environment.

"If we were to be deterred by a controversy, that would diminish our prize," said the foundation's president, Kenneth Quinn, a retired U.S. diplomat.

This year's award goes to Marc Van Montagu, founder and chairman of the Institute of Plant Biotechnology Outreach at Ghent University in Belgium; Mary-Dell Chilton, founder and researcher at Syngenta Biotechnology; and Robert Fraley, chief technology officer at Monsanto.

Van Montagu and Chilton independently developed the technology in the 1980s to stably transfer foreign genes into plants, a discovery that set up a race to develop tools to genetically engineer plants. It allowed other scientists to incorporate genetic traits in plants to better withstand drought, extreme heat and to fight off pests and disease. Fraley was the first to successfully transfer immunity to specific bacteria into a plant.

Fraley genetically engineered the first herbicide-resistant soybean in 1996.

The foundation lists Monsanto and Syngenta Foundation among its annual donors, along with other agribusiness corporations such as DuPont Pioneer, Archer Daniels Midland Co. and Cargill.

The award drew immediate condemnation from opponents of corporate farming.

"We could not ask for a better poster child for what's wrong with the prize than the recipients of this year's World Food Prize," said Frank Cordaro, who organized an Occupy World Food Prize protest last year. "It's all part of the very same system of the corporate elite. The problem is not with the recipients, the problem is with the system that gives the 1 percent all the power and corporate agriculture is built on that system."

Genetically enhanced crops are grown on more than 420 million acres in nearly 30 countries by over 17 million farmers worldwide, the foundation said. More than 90 percent are small, resource-poor farmers in developing countries.

Many U.S. farmers credited genetic modifications in corn with saving last year's crop from all but total devastation as half of the nation endured the worst drought in 60 years. Modern corn plants are more stable and can withstand a wider variety of climate conditions because of genetically improved leaves, roots and reproductive capability.

Fraley said biotechnology will enable the farming industry to meet the needs of a growing global population.

"We know we need from a demand perspective to double food production around the world in the next 30 years," he said.

Some organic farmers warn that widespread planting of genetically modified crops could contaminate organic and traditional crops, destroying their value. Others are concerned about the uncharted long-term impact for those who eat products such as milk and beef from animals raised on genetically modified plants.

"GMO crops have led to the loss of food security worldwide and for small farmers, they have led to the development of factory farms and have destroyed biodiversity in food we do produce and consume," said David Goodner, a community organizer for Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement, an environmental and human rights activist group that opposes corporate farming. "The World Food Prize by selecting these people to honor shows that it cares more about corporate profits than it cares about truly feeding the world with healthy food."

Van Montagu said the food prize award should raise understanding of the safety of genetically modified crops.

"We just have to explain to society the science fact and that is not the slightest risk has been identified. These crops are as safe, if not safer, than food that comes from traditional agriculture," he said. "If somebody denies that we bluntly can say they are misinformed."

The World Food Prize was created in 1986 by Norman Borlaug, winner of the Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts to fight hunger. Borlaug was honored in 1970 for work that boosted agricultural production in what has become known as the "Green Revolution."

Recipients will receive the prize, which includes $250,000, at a ceremony in October at the Iowa Capitol in Des Moines attended by hundreds of scholars and agribusiness leaders from around the world.

CHICAGO (Reuters) - A daily dose of powerful anti-HIV medicine helped cut the risk of infection with the AIDS virus by 49 percent in intravenous drug users in a Bangkok study that showed for the first time such a preventive step can work in this high-risk population.

"This is a significant step forward for HIV prevention," said Dr. Jonathan Mermin, director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which helped conduct the clinical trial along with the Thailand Ministry of Health.

The study, published on Wednesday in the journal Lancet, looked at the treatment approach known as pre-exposure prophylaxis, or PrEP, in which HIV treatments are given to uninfected people who are at high-risk for HIV infection.

The drug used in the study was Gilead's older and relatively cheap generic HIV drug tenofovir. The study was launched in 2005.

Prior studies of this approach showed it cut infection rates by 44 percent in men who have sex with men, by 62 percent in heterosexual men and women and by 75 percent in couples in which one partner is infected with HIV and the other is not. The new results showed that it also protects intravenous drug users.

"We now know that PrEP can work for all populations at increased risk for HIV," Mermin said in a statement.

Based on the results, the CDC plans to recommend that U.S. doctors who wish to prescribe this treatment for their patients follow the same interim guidelines issued last year to prevent sexual transmission among other high-risk individuals.

Intravenous use of drugs like heroin accounts for about 8 percent of all new HIV infections in the United States and about 10 percent of new HIV infections worldwide. In some regions, such as Eastern Europe and Central Asia, injection drug abuse accounts for about 80 percent of all new infections.

The new findings involved more than 2,400 intravenous drug users in Bangkok who were not infected with the human immunodeficiency virus, which causes AIDS, and were being treated at the city's drug treatment clinics.

Half took tenofovir and half took a placebo. All participants were given HIV prevention counseling, risk-reduction strategies such as condoms and methadone treatment, and monthly HIV testing.

At the end of the study, there were 17 HIV infections among people taking the HIV medication, compared with 33 infections among those not taking the drugs, the researchers found.

The researchers also looked to see what factors influenced infection rates among those taking the HIV medication. They found that people who took their medication at least 71 percent of the time had a 74 percent lower risk of becoming infected with HIV.

Although it was not clear how the preventive drug treatment worked - by stopping infections caused by sharing dirty needles or by unprotected sex among drug users - the study produced a reduction in infection rates, said Dr. Salim Abdook Karim of the University of KwaZulu-Natal in Durban, South Africa and of Columbia University in New York.

"The introduction of PrEP for HIV prevention in injecting drug users should be considered as an additional component to accompany other proven prevention strategies like needle exchange programs, methadone programs, promotion of safer sex and injecting practices, condoms, and HIV counseling and testing," Karim, who was not involved in the study, wrote in a commentary accompanying the study in the Lancet.

"PrEP as part of combination prevention in injecting drug users could make a useful contribution to the quest for an AIDS-free generation," Karim added.

(Reporting by Julie Steenhuysen; Editing by Michele Gershberg and Will Dunham)

Reuters inadvertently published the attached story on Wednesday June 12 at 12.04 pm ahead of the embargo time of 11pm

The league has a moratorium on teams discussing personnel business until players officially sign on Wednesday.

Howard made waves across the league by verbally committing to the Rockets on Friday rather than returning to the Los Angeles Lakers.

Amidst the excitement, both the Rockets general manager Daryl Morey and coach Kevin McHale publicly commented on securing Howard to draw the penalty.

Howard is set to officially sign a four-year, $88 million contract to join the Houston franchise.

(Writing by Jahmal Corner in Los Angeles; Editing by Ian Ransom)

On Tuesday, classes began in the Dallas Independent School District (DISD) with about 6,000 students, and a very limited amount of teachers.

Weve never had a shortage for summer school, never. And Ive been in DISD for about 12 years, Angela Davis, president of the National Education Association, a teachers group, .

So, whats the problem?

Teachers blame Superintendent Mike Miles, a leader who they claim has a very heavy hand when it comes to management. Davis told the television station that teachers were very stressed during the school year.

Michael Messer, regional organizer for Save Texas Schools in Dallas-Fort Worth, agreed.

Since the board hired Mike Miles to be superintendent, his heavy-handed approach has left the teachers and staff demoralized, Messer told TakePart. The school board and Mike Miles decided to fire two principals and approximately 400 teachers in late May. Many experienced teachers have left the profession in response to these harsh measures. At some point, you have to expect people to start standing up for themselves, even if their typical response to administrative adversity is to grin and bear it for the students.

Messer said that teachers can refuse to teach summer school because their contracts do not obligate them to do so. Teachers are only paid a daily rate for teaching summer classes.

He said teachers have been extremely stressed since spring 2012 when the district school board decided to increase class sizes and extend the workday by 45 minutes. Theyto do their jobs, he said.

These moves made the teachers jobs more difficult by adding extra paperwork to their already busy schedule, he said. It insulted them by insinuating that they did not already work enough hours to justify their salary. Anyone who is or knows a teacher understands just how much personal time they devote to grading homework, writing lesson plans, and heading after-school programs.

Andedicated to issues in the Dallas school district paints a dire picture. A teacher in the district wrote that while conditions during the regular school year are tough, summer school poses its own set of problems.

The entire student body consists of the students who failed despite all interventions. A large percentage of these same students are disruptive and unable to behave appropriately in a classroom, she wrote. Its a tough gig to jump in the trenches with so many below-level kids and get them up to speed so they can promote to the next grade.

Teachers attempt to do their best in summer school with struggling students, but its tough. In addition, this year there is additional stress for teachers. The staff will be closely monitored with more spot observations. She adds, In short, teachers were promised more opportunities to get fired.

The teachers arent the only ones saying enough is enough. This week, the school districts communications chiefjust days after the personnel chief and the operations chief quit.

Because of the shortage, students who must attend summer school in Dallas may be placed in larger classes. And more students in one classroom means less one-on-one attention. Therefore, students who were already having trouble understanding the material (or had failed the controversial STAAR exams) have less time with a teacher to explain, Messer said. It renders summer school an ineffective waste of taxpayer funds, and the students are more likely to repeat classes.

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